Archives for February, 2008

What? Is this a joke, Ethan? Have you been watching Jurassic Park again, drinking Dino DNA or something? No, I got an interesting question from startswithabang.com reader and ichthyophobe Lucas: Over the years a few intact, frozen woolly mammoth have been found and procured by different scientists and governments, most recently Japan. What are they…

Last week, Pamela Gay over at Star Stryder pointed me to a press release which claimed that, among other things, perhaps dark matter wasn’t necessary. So I wrote a guest post on her blog explaining why it was. Apparently, some people still aren’t convinced. So I will lay out for you all the reasons I…

As Bonnie Tyler sang, and later The Dan Band (with more cursing), Once upon a time there was light in my life But now there’s only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart Well, it isn’t the heart, but this Wednesday night, beginning at 10 PM Eastern Standard…

Alright, folks, so last week I got this letter from a very good magician and television producer Anthony Owen from Objective Productions, the company partnered with Discovery Channel to make Dangerman in London: Thank you for your recent email application for Dangerman. If you are still interested in being considered for this role we’d like…

So I am preparing an audition video to be Dangerman this weekend, which will go up on youtube and get posted here next week. In the meantime, as promised for the weekend, I have a new weekend diversion for you: the archer fish, a.k.a. toxotes jaculatrix (hee hee). But what makes it so cool? Oh,…

Three awesome things are going on today for you, and I invite you to check them all out: The latest Carnival of Space is live, where you have your choice of 23 different astronomical topics to choose from. Of course, my post this week on galaxies and how they’re made is on there, too! Pamela…

The closest you’re going to get from me on Valentine’s Day is something red, dear readers. As the Moon is now a waxing gibbous and will be for the next week, it will brighten the sky for the majority of the night. But before sunrise, it will dip below the horizon and set. The funny…

I’ve been talking about dark matter a lot, and yet there’s still so much to explain about it. For example, dark matter and normal matter (protons, neutrons, and electrons) have a few things in common: They both have mass. They both feel the effects of gravity. They both cause their own gravity. But that’s where…

Last week, Jamie (my significant other) came home from work and told me about a conversation she had with her coworker, Chris. This week she asked another one, Miguel, whether he had any questions about Astronomy, Physics, space, etc. This week’s question comes from Miguel: What is a galaxy, anyway? Why does it look like…

Ever get sick of your life here on Earth? What about really getting away from it all; what if you wanted to live in space, orbiting the Earth, away from everyone. (At least for awhile, like a summer home.) What would you need to do it, and what would it consist of? I propose an…